The red poppy's rise as a symbol of remembrance

The wartime flowers bloomed due to nitrogen in exploded bombs and from the blood of slain soldiers. (PR HANDOUT IMAGE PHOTO) (AAP)

There's a terrible truth behind historic images of pretty red poppies dancing in the battlefields of World War I.

If not for the nitrogen in the bombs that tore up the landscape, and in the blood of slain soldiers, they would never have bloomed in such numbers and become an enduring symbol of remembrance